The bad news is the same thing: the number of infected is likely to be much higher. That could mean the virus is getting WAY more opportunities to mutate to something better adapted to humans.

It also means that it’s likely this flu will be like others: a complete bastard of a thing to halt if it gets going. SARS was comparatively easy by comparison: infected people almost universally had fevers, and only people with fevers were shedding much virus. That’s easy to track, even if you get a lot of false positives.

If this, like other flus, has asymptomatic carriers, and / or people shedding some virus before they show symptoms, then the only regional-quarantine effort worth a damn will be a 100%, 6-day effort, which frankly no-one would have the political will to implement early enough (IMO).

We’ll be down to social distancing, masks and hand-washing, antivirals and ECMO, and pneumovax and antibiotics – which are all good, they help, but we’re not likely to shut this down like we did SARS.

Having said all of that, I’d happily put money on this NOT becoming a human pandemic. I reckon it’s more likely to settle down to something wussy, lurk around like H5N1 has, or vanish into the night altogether.

Just, as I said on another blog, I wouldn’t put ALL my money on it.
🙂

The mortality rate is only of the reported infections, so given that extra sick people go to the hospital it is probably (we hope) a worst case scenario. So that’s good. A little.